There doesn't seem to be any discussion about this announced alternative history film, or mockumentary as some refer to it. It's a "what if" story about the direction the space program might have taken were it not for political expediences of the time. The imagined outcome places the first moon landing in the early 60s, the first Mars landing by the late 60s and sizable [400,000+] offworld colonization by present day.

I was both encouraged by the optimistic tone of the futuristic predictions and discouraged by the less exciting reality of today. I hope this project is actually completed. It could make people consider what might have been...

i caught someone the other day talking about a different world, saying what would have happened if the NAZI's had won the war, what would have happened to the German Scientists. With their technology what might have been? Was a scary discussion! Think my mind went of on a tangent to command and conquer red alert at tha point! always a thought though! Ill give this one a download, might be slightly more positive!

Here's an article that critiques Braun's plans that were outlined in Collier's Magazine back in the early 1950s. According to the article, Von Braun's plan was not practical was destined to fail if it was implemented.

By the by that was 1948-1953 technology! Not 1962.
If you read the von Braun novel The Mars Project issued in 2006 (written in 1948!) you will see he had men on the moon in the 1970's and the Mars Expedition happening in 1985.

NASA's push to use the capsule spacecraft design pigeon-holed them for many years. The X-20 Dyna-Soar was a fixed wing spacecraft that was being develped by the U.S. Air Force in the early 1960s but was canceled. I can only imagine what kind of spacecraft we could have today if they continued to develop a Dyna-Soar type spacecraft. Alas, NASA has gone back to the capsule design for the new Orion program. I guess that means 30 years of space shuttle development and operations goes to waste?

30 years of shuttle development? I must have missed something. I thought the capsule design is the most effective form to transport the heat away.

I said development AND operations. Next time please don't just quote part of my post.

Quote:

Every design has it's pro's and con's. For the moment, it would be better if they would design something that simply worked and could be run the cheapass way.

Yes, and that time and effort developing a "better" capsule will take away from developing a "real" spacecraft. And they haven't actually build a single Orion capsule yet and the schedule keeps slipping.

Geez cool down. How is any single shuttle-operation not a waste of time and money?

No more a waste of time and money as using a space capsule system. We build this huge launch vehicle stackup and the only thing that returns to earth is a tiny capsule which isn't even reusable. And that is more economical than a reusable spacecraft? The space shuttle is not a true resuable spacecraft either. But it should be a stepping stone towards truly reusable spacecraft. I'll put it this way. If you got a group of engineers, scientists, and managers that worked on the space shuttle and other space systems over the years and told them to come up with a preliminary design of reusable spacecraft and use lessons learned from the space shuttle they couldn't come up with a better system?